Microsoft to open retail stores in major cities worldwide

Microsoft said Thursday that it has hired a Wal-Mart veteran to open a chain of retail stores, which are targeted for several major cities around the world.

The decision to open Microsoft-owned and branded stores is a major shift of strategy for a company that had consistently denied any plans to open its own shops, despite the success of stores run by its rival, Apple.

“We’re not planning to open stores, but we need to learn more about stores,” said Bill Brownell, Microsoft general manager of worldwide retail services, in an interview only last month. “We need to take more of a leadership role.”

In recent months, Microsoft had moved to take greater control over the way its products were sold.

In mid-November, Microsoft quietly announced that for the first time all of the company’s consumer products — from “Flight Simulator X” to Windows Vista — could now be bought directly from Microsoft online in the United States at Microsoftstore.com.

And the company also recently opened a mock store in Redmond, which at the time the company said was designed to showcase various displays that retailers could then replicate.

A spokeswoman said that the new stores are part of a “broader strategy to better connect with customers in the retail environment.”

“Our target is a small number of high-profile experience stores in a few major cities around the world,” she said.

“Consumers everywhere want to continue to be smart about what they are spending their money on – and we think we can demonstrate tremendous value and help simplify the PC and device purchase experience for them. This is the focus of our retail push.”

While the stores will carry Microsoft’s own software and hardware, it still has not been determined whether they will also sell non-Microsoft products. An official name has also not been set.

Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, who previously led worldwide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation SKG, to lead the effort. Porter previously spent 25 years at Wal-Mart.

In a statement, Turner said, “We’re … working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail by improving the articulation and demonstration of the Microsoft innovation and value proposition so that it’s clear, simple and straightforward for consumers everywhere.”

The opening of retail stores will put Microsoft in direct competition with companies that currently sell Microsoft products at their own outlets.

But Tim Bajarin, the president of consulting firm Creative Strategies, said that in the short term it was unlikely the Microsoft stores would have much impact on chains like Best Buy. That will instead depend on how quickly Microsoft expands the chain.

“I don’t think this is much of a huge money making place like it is for Apple,” Bajarin said. Instead, he said, it is “a huge marketing vehicle to make sure people understand the capabilities and value of Windows Vista and eventually Windows 7.”

“One of their concerns has been getting people really familiar with Microsoft products in a way that showed the true virtues of the product.”

In 1999, Microsoft actually opened an 8,500 square foot store in San Francisco, called microsoftSF. Microsoft shuttered the store two years later.